


a fifteen year plan

by shotofvanilla



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, more self-indulgent fluff really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotofvanilla/pseuds/shotofvanilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack brings it up at breakfast—voice quiet, but sure—before Bitty’s even managed to take a full sip of coffee. </p><p>“I’m thinking of coming out. Soon.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a fifteen year plan

**Author's Note:**

> Super self-indulgent, really. Imagining a future with a side of breakfast thrown in. 
> 
> It all started because of [this ask/ficlet](http://betsytheoven.tumblr.com/post/128067286981/oh-man-but-jack-doesnt-propose-yet-not-yet) from [betsytheoven](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thatfamoushappyending)
> 
> Also posted on [tumblr](http://youreyesarelikestarlightnow.tumblr.com/post/128087261912/a-fifteen-year-plan-super-indulgent-just-straight)

Jack brings it up at breakfast—voice quiet, but sure—before Bitty’s even managed to take a full sip of coffee. 

“I’m thinking of coming out. Soon.” 

The coffee takes a wrong turn on the way down and Bitty chokes, just a little. He coughs loudly to clear his throat, and sees Jack’s eyes turn wide, panicked. The hand that had been reaching forward towards him stops dead. 

So Bitty puts down his butter knife and meets him halfway, letting their hands rest on the table. As casually as he can, he asks, “Really?” 

“Mmhm,” Jack nods. His eyes keep their worried look, until Bitty rubs a thumb across his knuckles. 

“Why?” 

Jack’s eyes duck down, his brow furrowing. To fill the silence, Bitty reaches for his coffee again, taking a patient sip and studying how the sun from the window bounces off the table and lights the air with tiny dust particles as he waits.

After a few moments, Jack finally says, “When we came out to our parents, all those months ago, I-I hadn’t realized how… _good_ it would feel, the relief of not having to hide anymore from some of the most important people in my life. And I think,” he takes a deep breath, and continues, “I think I’m done, with hiding in general. I’m tired of it, Bits, just... _tired_.”

Bitty squeezes his hand and smiles. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Have you talked to George about it at all?”

Jack shakes his head, his hair still a mess from sleep. “Not yet. I should though, soon, so we can come up with some kind of plan.”

“What kind of plan, do you think?” 

“A slow one, probably.” Bitty giggles a little at how Jack’s features bunch up, how he rolls his eyes. “I probably won’t be out for a year, or two, and that’s not even considering our relationship.”

_Our relationship._ This boy.

“But then,” Jack continues, staring out the window thoughtfully, “you could probably start coming to more events with me, you know? Parties, charity events…games even, and not just with the Samwell guys or my parents, but whenever you wanted. And we could let more people see us together, go out to eat more—”

“Jack Zimmermann, is that a slight against my cooking?”

“Never,” Jack laughs. “But the team will want us to go slow, let the public get used to the idea. And speculation would spike interest in the team, which is not a bad thing, of course. But eventually, you could tweet about, let people know—”

“Or make a vlog about it, start small.”

“‘ _Start small,’_ Bittle, you have almost two million subscribers on YouTube that’s hardly small—”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Bitty presses on, ignoring Jack’s look. “Then we’re out. And then what?”

“And then…” Jack trails off, staring out the window again. Their breakfasts start to go cold, and Bitty could not care less. Their hands still rest on the table in front of him. “Then we’re out, and we…get a dog.”

“A dog?” Bitty can’t help the laughter from bubbling up. “I thought you were more of a cat person, Kitty Jack.”

Jack groans and stares up at the ceiling. “I thought we wouldn’t mention that ever.”

“Why? I thought you looked very fetching in those cat ears. I bet we still have them in a box somewhere, I could totally—”

“No, Bits. No.”

Bitty holds his hand up in surrender. “Okay, okay. We can get a dog. And a cat, maybe.” He looks around the apartment. “Lord, it would get crowded, even in here.”

“So then we’ll get a house.”

Bitty’s eyes snap back to Jack, who seems equally startled by his words. He blinks. “Jack…”

“We’ll get a house,” Jack repeats, slowly. “Somewhere outside the city, but not too far outside because…because you want to open that bakery someday.”

“How did you—“ Bitty’s mouth drops open.

“You leave your Pinterest page open sometimes. I still don’t know how to use it, but I see the pictures and I sometimes hear the conversations you have with your mom. And catering’s going great, plus the Youtube thing, but…” Jack trails off. 

“I’d like my own store front,” Bitty finishes.

“Exactly. So we can’t be too far from the city, because of your bakery.”

“Which I will open with my own money.”

Jack lets out a long sigh. “Bittle, come on, we’ve talked about this and—” He leans forward, arguments on his tongue.

“Exactly,” Bitty interjects. “We’ve talked about this. I’m fine with you paying for my coffees and not taking rent money and all, but if I’m going to take the pastry world by storm, I’m going to do it on my own dime. I don’t want to do it on someone else’s money. You’ll just have to come in and buy lots of pies from me.”

“But if we’re married, it won’t be someone else’s money; it will be our money.”

Bitty chokes, again. 

“Married?” His voice sounds terrible, somehow breathy and hoarse at the same time. Blood rushes to his face, and the temperature in the room seems to jump ten degrees.

Underneath the table, he can feel Jack’s knee start to bounce up and down, a nervous tick, like he wants to run somewhere, far away. With the hand not grasping Bitty’s, he picks up a fork and starts to push food around on his plate, but doesn’t eat anything. 

“…I’ve thought about it,” Jack says, voice low. He trips over some of his words. “And I think it would be nice, if, one day—not anytime soon—but one day, and only if you wanted to, we could…consider it. Getting married, I mean.”

Bitty’s mind races. He feels like he’s half asleep, in a dream, but he corrects Jack anyway. “When.”

“What?”

“ _When_ ,” Bitty says again, “we want to. And I think we’ll do a lot more than just consider it.”

Jack’s eyes look impossibly blue in the sunlight, like something out of a painting, or a photograph. “Really?”

Bitty feels a smile stretch across his mouth, so wide his cheeks hurt, and he watches as the same expression cross Jack’s face. 

And then: “Well, if it gets me my bakery.”

Jack actually throws his head back and laughs. “So you _are_ in this for the money, then?”

Bitty hums, mock-serious. “The money, that ass, and those baby blues of yours.”

“I see how it is.”

“I mean, you keep me around for the pies, don’t you?”

“The pies and _your_ ass.”

“Oh please. Don’t patronize me, Zimmermann. We both know who ‘single-assedly’ made hockey popular in America.”

“Okay, okay,” Jack shakes his head, but his grin is still too wide for his face. “So we’re married, and we buy a house. Or we get a house first, maybe? Something nice, with a big kitchen for you and two, maybe three bedrooms—”

“Three?” 

“Three. For when parents or friends stay over, or if we, you know," Jack looks up to meet his eyes, emphasizing his next words carefully, "need the space one day.”

Bitty’s heart beats so fast he can hear it in his ears. All of Providence, Rhode Island can probably hear it too. “Jack Zimmermann, this is a lot, for a Wednesday morning,” he says, voice hushed to a whisper.

“I mean, we don’t have to do anything soon, but I just wanted you to know.”

“What are you thinking then: ten, maybe fifteen years?”

Jack nods, eyes light. “At least.”

“Okay,” Bitty nods back. He find Jack’s hand again. “Okay. Where, though? Where does this fifteen year plan take place?”

*~*~*

Jack shifts in his seat. 

Providence feels like home now, or it’s starting to. Jack goes on his morning runs through the city every morning, sometimes with Bitty joining him, and they stop at the café around the corner often enough the barista there knows both their names and orders (she even anticipates Bitty’s order once the seasonal drinks come in). Their neighbors love them, or love Bitty at least, with all the pies he makes them, and the Greensteins’ down the hall just invited them to a baby shower (probably for the pies though). His contract will be up soon, but George took him aside a couple weeks to talk about next season and possibly stepping into a leadership role, so he feels more than optimistic. 

At the same time, Montréal sits right just across the border, with crisp snow three-fourths of the year and the ponds Jack played shinny on as a kid. He could play for the home team, if they took him, in the way he dreamt about when he was young, and he started teaching Bitty Québécois last year. Sometimes, he walks in to hear him practicing it with his dad over the phone. Bitty could find fresh Canadian maple syrup at the grocery store around the corner, instead of having to drive to the fancy organic market twenty minutes away, and Jack could see his parents more often, and they might worry less. 

Hell, there’s even Georgia, far away and different from anything Jack knows except Bitty. Bitty, who Skypes with his parents every day, even just to talk about the weather, and still puts on around ten layers of clothing when it starts snowing. They’d visited _his_ childhood when they’d flew down last time, and the ice rink there acted as a relief for Jack in more ways than one. It’s not a place to play hockey, really, but in the future, perhaps, it would be a nice place to start a family, if Jack could deal with the summer heat and humidity.

But there’s also Boston, with Shitty and Lardo close by to keep Bitty company when Jack has to travel for work. Bitty could start his bakery there, easily, and his southern hospitality would win the hearts of all the tourists and traffic that come in. Playing for the Bruins nags at him, more than a little, (he’s from _Montréal_ ) but so do memories of Samwell, of surprising fresh starts and growing to love a city he thought he would hate. Bitty always talks about wanting to visit the old stomping grounds, and in a way, it’s where everything started for Jack, for Bitty, for both of them.

“Jack?”

He looks up. Bitty leans toward him, all summer warmth and freckles, grinning over cold coffee and colder breakfast. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he promises.

Bitty tastes like coffee and the hazelnut sweetener Jack teases him about. 

“I’m looking forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Talk to me on [tumblr](http://youreyesarelikestarlightnow.tumblr.com)!


End file.
